Communication
by Troglodytes
Summary: Gray wonders if being raised by a dragon makes a person incapable of having a serious conversation without attacking the other person. Post episode 72.


**So. This is my first Fairy Tail fic. It's between episodes 72 and 73 (which is as far as I've gotten in the anime so far), right after the Dragonoid near-disaster. I hope my characterization's not horrible. The show never really puts time into emotional fallout from the traumatic experiences they all go through. Basically, I can't believe that Natsu and Gray would laugh this one off easily.**

* * *

"Hey, Happy, that's my sushi. Quit taking it!" Natsu growled, trying to grab the stolen food.

The cat just laughed and flew higher. "But it's fish, Natsu! FISH! I caught it, anyway, so it ought to be mine, you know."

Growling through a grin, the pink-haired mage leapt onto the table, fire-wreathed hands reaching for the pilfered sushi. "No, I caught it! You only caught one fish, and it was too small to eat, remember!"

Another young mage entered the main room of the guild-hall, took in the scene, and smiled.

Flying higher, Happy pouted. "But Natsu… you said that we were sharing all the fish we caught, right? 'Cause we're friends? So you eat your half and I'll eat mine!"

"HALF? I'm five, no, ten times your size! Why should you get half? That makes no sense! Come on, Gray, back me up, will you?" Natsu howled. A blast of fire narrowly missed the flying cat, who giggled.

The instant Natsu looked at him, Gray's face went blank. He didn't even so much as glance up, walking right past his rival's table to the job request board. He perused the selection, completely ignoring the fiery glare of the other mage. Gray sighed. After pulling down a decent-paying solo job, the Ice wizard turned to leave.

"What do you think you're doing, Gray?" Nearly six feet of Dragon Slayer blocked his way. "I thought you were taking a break from jobs. That's what you told Erza when you backed out on the last one. And the one before that. It's been a month since you last spoke to me, you know. More than a month! Why don't you pull your head out of your ass and come back to our team already!"

Gray didn't even let Natsu slow him down. He swerved to avoid him, refusing to so much as meet his eyes. Both of his hands did clench into fists, which trembled and generated a sheen of ice that spread up his arms. By the time Gray stalked out the door, his entire upper body was covered in a crystalline coating.

Natsu, who had yelled the last sentence at his old friend's retreating back, narrowed his eyes, seething. _So he hates me. I can deal with that. It makes sense. Still, the least he could do is say it to my face. Bastard._

Happy took the distraction as an opportunity to nick another piece of sushi. Natsu turned his glare in his direction, so he yelped and flew back up to the rafters with his prize. "I thought you didn't like raw fish, Natsu! You eat the cooked ones, and I eat the rest, right?"

The growl returned, fragments of flame dripping from the Salamander's bared teeth. Screaming his frustration, Natsu punched fire at the plate of sushi, leaving only blackened lumps on the plate and half the table charred. Then he sighed and sat down, saying, "See, Happy, they're cooked. Go find your own fish." The last few words were muffled; the boy had buried his face in his arms.

The cat frowned, gulping down the stolen sushi and wandering off.

A few minutes and a guild full of concerned glances later, Mirajane approached him, gently asking if he was okay. She reached out to pat his shoulder, but reconsidered when she noticed the thin sheet of fire dancing over his skin.

"I am fine," Natsu said flatly. "Gray's an idiot, that's all." The flames faded, and he stood up, giving her a weak smile.

She smiled back. "In that case, can you help me relight the fireplace? I think Gray put it out accidentally."

The Dragon slayer took an involuntary step back, biting his lip. _She's trying to cheer me up, _he thought. All of Fairy Tail knew how much he loved to show off, so they kept coming up with fire-related problems for him to fix. _They really think I'm that stupid, that I don't realize they're trying to make me feel useful. _He agreed quickly, managing a grin, but the moment Mirajane's back was turned, he closed his eyes and shook his head sharply.

Every time someone asked him to relight a fire or toast a bagel or whatever else they brought to him, he flashed back to the inside of that damned Dragonoid's lacrima, to feeling his magic, his _soul _being ripped from his body.

_They ask because they care, _he reminded himself. _They're not just using me. They wouldn't. They're my friends, my nakama._

No matter how many times he repeated it, some part of Natsu's brain insisted that no one saw him as anything but a walking weapon.

* * *

Gray sighed. He was doing that a lot, lately.

As he slowly walked up the steps, Gray considered what to say. _There's nothing I can say, _he muttered internally. _I mean, how the hell do you phrase something like this? And it's not like he'll let me finish talking, anyway._

Taking one last deep breath, the nervous Ice wizard let himself into Lucy's apartment.

Natsu lay on the floor, staring at the ceiling. Gray couldn't help chuckling. "Happy said you'd probably be here, since Lucy's out shopping with Wendy." The flying blue cat found him about half an hour ago. After scolding him for being a horrible friend, he had informed the dumbstruck Gray just how insecure and desperate the Dragon slayer had been feeling since the Dragonoid catastrophe. And that Gray's cowardice was making it worse.

Springing up from the floor, the Dragon Slayer slid into a battle stance, eyeing him warily. It nearly broke Gray's heart to see the poorly hidden sadness and self-hatred behind the façade of anger. He turned quickly, tossing his long white coat over a chair and blinking rapidly to prevent tears. _Happy was right, _he thought, horrified. _He really does think that I hate him. Hotheaded moron._

"What, so you figured you'd ambush me?" Natsu snarled, flames leaping into life around his fists.

Rolling his eyes, Gray snorted. "Yeah. I'm ambushing you. Because when I'm planning on attacking someone, I always knock on the door first, and then turn my back to take off my coat."

"You do usually take off your coat," the other boy let out a single bark of laughter. "And everything else." The flames dimmed, but didn't fade entirely. "So, what do you want from me, Fullbuster?"

"I don't- I- I hate having this sort of conversation, so just listen, please. I think I've been avoiding you too much lately, and you- I ought to explain why." Gray's eyes flicked up to glance at Natsu.

The flames roared back to full strength. "Oh, don't worry, Gray. I get it. I'm not an idiot."

"Yes," the dork-haired mage spat before he could stop himself. "You are an idiot. I don't hate you. I don't even-" He jumped back as Natsu swung a flaming punch at him.

"I don't want to hear explanations!" Natsu howled. "I just want you back on the team, fighting with me- with us!"

"Idiot! I stayed away from you because I didn't want to talk to you." The moment Gray said it, he knew it was a mistake.

The dragon slayer's next punch threw him to the other side of the room, denting the wall. "Oh, thanks, buddy. I see. You _didn't want to talk to me. _That makes me feel so much better!"

_Ow. If I don't fight back, he might actually hurt me. This is not going as I planned. Then again, when does anything when Natsu is involved? _Gray pushed himself to a sitting position, ducking his head and speaking quickly. "I avoided talking to you because, if I did, I would start trying to apologize."

Natsu laughed bitterly, picking him up by the collar of his shirt and slamming him into the wall. "There is NO POINT in apologizing," he snarled in Gray's face. "So just shut up, would you?"

All he could say was "No" before being thrown through the wall into the bathroom. Gray's head slammed into the bathtub, and he landed upside-down amid shattered tiles and the water accumulating from the now-broken faucet.

"SHUT UP!" Natsu roared.

Gray didn't even bother trying to sit up this time. "I'm sorry," he moaned. "Gods damn it, Natsu, I want to apologize for everything that happened, but I can't, because I don't deserve to be forgiven."

That surprised the dragon boy into silence for a moment.

"It was my fault, all of it. I shouldn't have set it all up, shouldn't have made the deal with Daphne. I should have _warned you _of my plan, at least. It all went wrong because I was foolish enough to assume that you would break out of that thing right away, and I nearly got everyone killed, nearly got Magnolia destroyed. She- that bitch _violated _you, all because I thought I was so clever, that I could make everything better all on my own…" his voice trailed off. Eyes closed, he heard Natsu roar, felt the heat of his flames, but, surprisingly enough, wasn't burned.

Gray dared to open his eyes, and saw the scorched spot on the ceiling.

The other boy sighed, sliding to the floor and hugging his knees to his chest. "I won't forgive you," he said quietly.

_Don't cry. DON'T CRY. _"You shouldn't forgive me," Gray muttered.

"I can't forgive you because it wasn't your fault." Natsu shivered. "You were right. I should have broken out sooner. No one knows- no one realizes how close I was to giving up. Sure, they said I'd given up when I told them to destroy it, but that was just being practical. Giving up would've been so much worse- do you know that every time I see someone from the guild, I remember wanting to kill them? Macau, Lucy, Wendy, _Happy_- I wanted to smash them, burn them, tear them all into pieces. When you and Erza made me angry, I was going to kill her. If my magic power hadn't overwhelmed the Dragonoid, if Gajeel hadn't broken through…"

The Ice wizard sighed. "I know. I could tell. I know you better than anyone. Hell, there were a few moments when I was about ten seconds from sealing that monster into an Iced Shell, and you with it."

The Dragon Slayer stared, slackjawed, for half a second before launching himself at the slumped figure in the bathtub, stopping just short of grabbing him by the throat. "No," Natsu hissed. "NO. You promised. We talked about this. You _don't do that. _I don't care what happens, you do not get to kill yourself with that, do you hear me?"

"Natsu. _You were going to die._ It was my fault. The Iced Shell was probably the only thing that could save everyone else, and I- my best friend was going to die because I took it upon myself to put him in danger, and if that happened, I wouldn't be able to live with myself, anyway."

After about two minutes of speechless silence, the pink-haired mage stood and stalked out of the bathroom.

Gray sighed. Again.

A moment later, Natsu was back, clutching a piece of paper he'd obviously stolen from the inner pocket of his friend's coat. "I," he stated fiercely, "am going to put this back on the job board, because you are going to be too busy tomorrow to fufill it. You see, _our team _has a job collecting herbs for the hanami bingo prizes. That means that Erza, _you, _me, Happy, and Lucy are meeting in front of the guild tomorrow morning. And Wendy and Carla, too. If you don't show up, I will hunt you down and drag you along. Is that clear?"

Without waiting for a response, he left, most likely by jumping out a window, judging by the shrill yelling of Lucy's voice from the street.

By the time she made it into her home and saw the damage they'd caused, Gray was sitting on the edge of the tub, holding a charmed block of ice to his rapidly developing black eye. His teammate was shrieking about moronic males and water damage, but he ignored her, lost in thought.

_I wonder if being raised by a dragon makes a person incapable of having a serious conversation without attacking the other person. No, I suppose not; Wendy doesn't do that. Just a Natsu thing, then. Oh, well._

* * *

The next morning, he beat Natsu and Erza to the rendezvous. Wendy insisted on healing his bruises, and, when he tried to give Lucy money to cover the property damage, Natsu showed up and picked a fight. Apparently, he meant to pay for it, arguing that he caused the damage in the first place. Gray pointed out that it was his fault for cornering Natsu there and forcing him into the conversation, and they started brawling. Then Erza arrived, knocked their heads together, and handed both boys' money over to Lucy, who grinned and said she'd buy them all a round of drinks at the hanami. Wendy just watched, laughing.

It was a going to be good day.


End file.
